About Us

Global Gardens is a program of the Idaho Office for Refugees. We strive to involve diverse families in healthy lifestyles and entrepreneurial training. We do so through the cultivation, harvest, cooking, eating, and sales of fresh, healthy produce. We connect the food needs of diverse families with resources to grow and market food.

Global Gardens’ beginnings can be traced to 2004; its initial focus to create community gardens to help refugees to use their skills and feed their families. The program started with 3 community gardens, the Girl Scouts of Silver Sage headquarters (1410 Etheridge Lane), the Ahavath Beth Israel Synagogue (11 N. Latah St.), and Hillview United Methodist Church (8525 W. Ustick Rd.).The demand for these gardens quickly grew, leading to the official creation of Global Gardens.We currently have 9 community gardens, serving over 200 refugee families, representing up to 600 individuals. The majority of the gardeners are from east Africa; we also work with refugees from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bosnia, Russia, and Uzbekistan.

The focus shifted more towards farmer entrepreneurship training in 2008 when Katie Painter, current Program Coordinator, was hired and received a Refugee Agriculture Partnership Grant. There have been several spaces used to train our farmers, but the main farming spaces include the Five Mile Church of the Nazarene (8 plots), the space adjacent to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Cole Road, and a community garden/farm plot-hybrid space at 520 N. Liberty Street.

In 2013, Global Gardens experienced another shift to include include other families than refugees with the development of a new program on the Duck Valley Reservation (Idaho-Nevada border). In collaboration with META (Micro Enterprise Training and Assistance) we provided technical assistance in getting and using hoop houses with interested growers on the reservation.

With the hoop houses in place and support from Global Gardens, 2015 brought the first pilot farmers’ market to Duck Valley. Produce leftover from our farmers was brought to Duck Valley and sold alongside a few Duck Valley residents for a 6-week trial market. ​

What is a refugee?

Refugees differ from other immigrants in that they did not leave their home country by choice. Rather, they were forced to leave due to political unrest, persecution, or fear of death. Refugee arrivals in Idaho vary greatly in their personal histories. Many spent years in refugee camps without any modern amenities, little access to education, and minimal employment history.

Many currently arriving refugees come from agricultural backgrounds in their home countries, having worked as farmers of subsistence or commercial crops, or having cultivated traditional kitchen gardens near their homes or in refugee camps. Participation in community gardens and agricultural training programs is a natural fit for them in Idaho. Refugees face numerous cultural, linguistic, and economic barriers while entering the local farm economy as growers or consumers. Global Gardens is focused on breaking down these barriers and supporting refugees as participants in the local food economy.